Defence matters
David Blackburn 2:32pm
Sir Jock Stirrup’s early departure was one of the worst kept secrets in
Westminster. But the ‘resignation’ could have been better handled. The coalition has created a lame duck in Stirrup. And, rightly, Con Coughlin asks why Stirrup is overseeing the strategic defence
review if he was sufficiently inept as CDS? It makes no sense, as removing Stirrup and Sir Bill Jeffrey (the MoD’s permanent secretary) is clearly about preparing the way for spending cuts
and a new model of UK military intervention.
Liam Fox gave a speech this morning promising a ‘clean break with the Cold War mindset’. He emphasised the importance of maintaining counter-insurgency spending and training; presumably, that will come at the expense of conventional warfare. David Cameron will brief the Commons on his Afghan trip this afternoon, and I expect him to reiterate his commitment to the current strategy – he has said nothing to make one expect anything else. Funding the Afghan mission is the coalition’s number one overseas priority and it will remain so until President Obama begins to withdraw US troops.
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Arthur
June 14th, 2010 2:39pm Report this commentJudging by the amount of money spent, then Afghanistan isn't the coalition's number 1 overseas priority: funding roadbuilding in Croatia via the EU, perhaps; supporting Greece's part in the Eurozone, perhaps; giving hundreds of millions in aid to India or China, certainly.
As long as they see Defence as just another spending department, we won't have moved on from the days of New Labour.
Yarnefromhorsham
June 14th, 2010 2:56pm Report this comment"Afghan Strategy" what strategy - the one where we keep pi....g away young lives and shed loads of money.
trevorsden
June 14th, 2010 5:36pm Report this commentif we are to get an army properly equipped its hard to see how we can afford pointless aircraft carriers and a totally uinballanced navy and air force
Chuck Unsworth
June 14th, 2010 7:00pm Report this commentOh do come on. Stirrup is overseeing the Review so that when the time comes the Review can be either accepted or thrown out together with him.
It's an old game. Select the fall guy before setting the task. Anything which Stirrup comes up with will be judged on the basis of political expediency.
If it happens to coincide with the country's best interests then maybe we'll get lucky.
Nicholas
June 14th, 2010 7:52pm Report this commentArthur has it. I'd rather see our Armed Forces built up instead of giving money away to corrupt foreign politicians. Disband all the quangos and conscript their employees into the Pioneer Corps.
Then we should make a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor to teach the Mau Mau President a lesson.
Marcher Baron
June 14th, 2010 8:09pm Report this commentI don't know about ditching the Cold War mentality, but I think we should be preparing for conflict with Argentina.
EC
June 15th, 2010 8:03am Report this comment"Sir" Jock Stirrup is a disgrace to his uniform.
Teepee
June 15th, 2010 2:28pm Report this commentA "Clean break with the Cold War mindset"? It looks to me as if we're blowing the budget on Trident, withdrawing from Afghanistan co-incidentally when there would otherwise be huge pressure to maintain the number of front-line forces and making the rest up as we go along.
David Lindsay
June 15th, 2010 3:39pm Report this commentWhat is meant by the departure of Sir Jock Stirrup and Sir Bill Jeffrey?
Their inability to work with a Secretary of State who appoints a foreign agent of a foreign intelligence agency as his Special Adviser?
The removal of, in Sir Jock, the principal obstacle to the implementation of the longstanding neoconservative scheme to abolish the Royal Air Force?
The acceleration of moves towards the neocons' single EU defence "capability" under overall American command but day-to-day German (or, with Sarkozy in place, possibly French) control, one to take up with the Armed Forces Minister, Nick Harvey, the only Lib Dem to vote against Maastricht?
Is Liam Fox's neocon MoD becoming as difficult for William Hague's increasingly Tory FCO as Vince Cable's Business Department is for George Osborne's Treasury?
Or could it be - dare we hope, especially in view of the Prime Minister's remarks this week? - that the date of Sir Jock's and Sir Bill's departure is also the date, more-or-less or even exactly, of our withdrawal from Afghanistan?
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